A three-year-old girl tried to save her father from justice by telling an officer of the law the wounds she had on her face was because she had fallen from her bed.
However, the father, a U.S. Navy air traffic controller working at Pax River, allegedly confessed he had hit the girl and was placed under arrest, according to documents obtained from St. Mary’s District Court.
A friend of the man said she had seen wounds on the girl in the past also.
Officer M. Harrison said on Wednesday night he responded to a residence on Matthews Drive in Lexington Park on a report to check welfare. Upon arrival he made contact with the defendant Christopher Struble, 24, who advised his daughter, the three-year-old victim, was not at the residence.
Struble, a six-foot-three divorcee, said the child was with a friend of his. The officer asked Struble to call his friend so he could ascertain her location. The friend was heading northbound on Route 235 but agreed to meet Harrison at the Sunoco on Three Notch Road.
“Upon arrival to (Sunoco) I examined the victim and saw visible bruises and scrapes along the left side of the face of the victim,” Harrison’s statement of probable cause reads. The officer said when he asked the girl about the injuries, the three-year-old responded, “I fell off the bed.”
Shortly after, Struble also arrived at the Sunoco and when the officer asked him about the injuries on the girl’s face, he replied he had slapped her on the face. “I questioned [the friend] who advised she had seen injuries before on the victim and would provide a statement.”
The officer then contacted Monique Jessica Flores, fiancée of the defendant, at her work and asked her to respond to her home where Struble also lived. When the officer questioned Flores about the injury on the girl’s face, she said she had no clue.
Officer Harrison then arrested Struble on a charge of child abuse and transported him to St. Mary’s County Detention Center.